IK-ART

From the status of painter for more than a decade, IK-ART has recently become a professional painter artist. Self-taught, this chef from Auxerre worked in the shadows for a long time to ardently attempt to intensify his approach and to perfect his savoir-faire before considering revealing his creations to the public and to professionals about a year ago. A great admirer of the work of his Romanian contemporaries, including the painters Adrian Ghenie (born in 1977) and Dan Voinea (born in 1970), he has been able to develop a production that is both original and expressive at the same time.

IK-ART first applies himself to the conception of the background that he covers with large abstract, delicately nuanced blocks of colour, using large slabs of stainless steel that act as spatulas. This essential step “gives the work its tonality”. The artist then interprets his motif essentially with his fingers. The wild flowers are then sketched with many successive touches using bright colours.

Producing his first canvases with acrylics, he quickly adopted an oil painting technique that met his needs more in terms of pictorial practice. Indeed, the painter works his compositions by affixing multiple bases onto the canvas. These allow him the opportunity to create various visual effects that range from the search for haziness to clarity, thus accentuating the materiality of the subject being represented. The lively and precise action produces a profound and real dynamism to the ensemble. Seeking to “use [his] eye as a lens”, IK-ART conceives his works as fragments of secret life, like photographic snapshots that allow nature to be captured in movement.